Metheglin

Metheglin is a lovely and unusual cowl featuring a combination of stranded colorwork and interesting texture: slipped stitches form a honeycomb pattern over a garter stitch base of a contrasting color. It uses less than 100 m/110 yards/50 grams of each of two colors of worsted weight yarn, making it a great showcase for a small amount of something precious, luxurious, and soft. You can purchase this pattern for $5 as a PDF download through its Ravelry page. If you don’t have a Ravelry account, you can purchase the pattern by clicking here:

From the pattern description:Metheglin (muh-THEG-lin) is a type of wine brewed from honey, much like mead, but with added spices. The hexagons floating on the garter stitch surface of this cowl made me think of honeycomb, and the stranded colorwork makes it just a bit spicy. Worked top-down, in the round, with rolled reverse stockinette edges, it hugs the neck and flares gently out over the shoulders using increases worked into the pattern to form an elegant honeycomb collar that curves over the collarbones like a jeweled necklace.

The pattern uses less than 100 meters (110 yards)/50 grams of each color, making this a great way to showcase single skeins of precious yarn or small amounts of handspun. Go ahead and indulge in a skein of luxurious, next-to-skin soft yarn—hand-painted alpaca? Handspun, self-striping merino? Or just the odds and ends from your stash? Whatever it is, you can knit it up in no time into a cowl that shows off variegated or monochromatic colors with equal aplomb, and can be worn tucked into a coat for winter warmth without trailing scarf ends, or untucked for a fashion-forward accessory.

I like pairing variegated or semi-solid colors with a solid shade to give a stained-glass effect. While I’ve designed this pattern to use two colors, preferably a variegated MC yarn and a solid CC, a single color would work just as well. Even without contrasting colors, the texture is fascinating.

(Bonus: the pattern includes a list of some really awesome words having to do with mead and metheglin. You can improve your alcohol-related vocabulary while you knit!)

As far as pattern difficulty: it helps immensely to be able to follow a chart, and it helps to have some experience with stranded colorwork and cabling without a cable needle. I think it’s easiest to knit this pattern if you’re comfortable doing colorwork with one color in each hand.